The term “Vichy” refers to the shameful, collaborationist government in World War II France, during that country’s Nazi occupation. In the run-up to the Trump/MAGA occupation of the United States, Mark Zuckerberg just announced Vichy Meta.
Meta won’t be even a small part of the resistance.
Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook will end its longstanding fact-checking program. Third-party fact-checking was originally instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation on Facebook and Meta’s other social media apps.
The change was the latest sign of how companies owned by multi-zillionaires are “repositioning” (aka groveling) in preparation for the Trump presidency.
The Bulwark headlined the move “Mark Zuckerberg is a Surrender Monkey,” pointing out that he’d recently named Joel Kaplan as the company’s head of public policy. Kaplan isn’t just a Republican in good standing, he’s a close friend of Brett Kavanaugh, and–according to the article– “somewhere between friendly-toward and horny-for Trumpism.” He also appointed Dana White, manager of something called Ultimate Fighting Championship to Meta’s board of directors. That background is arguably irrelevant to Meta’s business, but his usefulness rather clearly isn’t in any expertise he possesses; instead, his “value” clearly lies in being one of Donald Trump’s closest friends and top endorsers.
Add to that Zuckerberg’s one million dollar donation to Trump’s Inaugural fund.
Kaplan went on Fox & Friends (of course) to explain that Facebook is killing its fact-checking program in order to make its content moderation strategy more like Elon Musk’s Twitter/X regime.
As all sentient Americans are aware, when Musk purchased Twitter (which he awkwardly re-named X), he promised unfettered free speech. He then proceeded to invite back users who had previously been banned for bad behavior. He then fired content moderation teams, and replaced them with crowdsourced “community notes” below disputed content. That is the model Meta is adopting.
So–how are things going at X?
Numerous studies have documented the enormous amounts of false and hateful content now on X. Antisemitic, racist and misogynistic posts rose sharply immediately after Musk’s takeover, and have continued to proliferate. It hasn’t only been the bigotry. Disinformation about issues like climate change and migration has exploded, and users are spending greater amounts of time liking and reposting items from authoritarian governments and terrorist groups like the Islamic State and Hamas.
There’s a reason so many advertisers have fled and former users of the platform have decamped for Bluesky.
The Bulwark reproduced Zuckerberg’s tweets announcing the change, including one jaw-dropping post explaining that the company would move its “trust and safety and content moderation teams” out of California and send them to Texas, to allay concerns about content-moderation bias. (If just being located in a Blue state creates bias, what sort of bias can we expect from people located in and influenced by Greg Abbott’s Red, retrograde Texas?)
All this to pander to an incoming autocrat whose continuing mental decline becomes more obvious every day. In his most recent press conference, Trump once again threatened to invade Greenland–owned by our ally Denmark– and to recapture the Panama Canal (which he inexplicably explained was necessary to counter China.) He also announced his intention to make Canada part of the U.S., and to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, I’m sure those measures will bring down the price of eggs….
This is the buffoon who will soon occupy the Oval Office. The fact that a (slim) majority of Americans voted for this mentally-ill ignoramus is depressing enough, but recognizing that we have large numbers of citizens who vote their White Christian Nationalism is one thing; the fact that people who clearly know better are willing to surrender their integrity in advance in order to stay in the good graces of the lunatic-in-charge is appalling.
Facebook has already morphed from a useful platform allowing us to interact with family and friends into a site where advertisements vastly outnumber real posts. Its content moderators were already bending over backwards to accommodate Rightwing worldviews. How many users have the time or energy–or interest–to rebut blatant falsehoods and conspiracy theories? For that matter, in a platform increasingly occupied by “bubbles”–where we interact mostly with people who already agree with us–will we even see the sorts of misinformation and disinformation that will be posted and enthusiastically shared by people who desperately want to believe that vaccines are a liberal plot and Jews have space lasers?
As Timothy Snyder wrote in “On Tyranny,” this is how democracies die: by surrendering in advance.
With all the good-will and respect in the world, it seems a little nieve to have expected people whose only goal is money and power to have stood up to a lunatic (with a raging revenge complex) who will control all 3 branches of government.
None of our billionaire overlords are good people. They all would gleefully toss the population of a NICU into a chipper shredder during a super bowl halftime show if they thought it would raise stock prices 1/10th of 1 cent.
Seems unlikely these kinds of people would be helpful to anyone other than themselves.
Professor-the enormously frightening message these obscenely wealthy people are doing as they suck up to our President-elect are influencing millions of people in our country. That is frightening as hell
With all this in mind, one wonders how long blogs like this one will be allowed to exist. There is a solution to this coming shit storm, but it better happen soon before the madmen actually get their slimy hands on the wheel.
We can identify the psychopathy of the orange hairball all day long, but as long as he exists, nothing will change the direction of our ship of state.
Anyone want to comment about oligarchs today, or how both sides are complicit?
Vernon, free expression will come to an end. The following is the text of my blog (Civil Discourse Now is a link on Professor Kennedy’s blog roll) that I posted last evening. The only person who can do anything to stop the dictatorship on January 20 is President Biden.
An article in The Atlantic details Adolf Hitler’s use of democracy to grab power in Germany & promptly snuff any trace of democracy. [FN1] In the quick evisceration of democracy Timothy W Ryback [FN2] describes, minutes counted. We have less than 12 days. 1/9
Hitler believed that his party’s plurality of 37% of the seats in the Reichstag meant “he should exercise absolute power.” [FN3] In Hitler’s 1st cabinet meeting, as Chancellor, “his main agenda item” was “the empowering law” to give him authority to keep campaign promises: 2/9
“revive the economy, reduce unemployment, increase military spending, withdraw from [] treaty obligations, purge the country of foreigners” [FN4] & get revenge on political opponents. [FN5] These all are campaign promises by trump. [FN6 – FN11] 3/9
The emergency we face is not simply national, but global: trump emulates Hitler and plans to carry out policies similar to Hitler’s. We still have time. Pres Biden can act on the national emergency already declared, i.e., Russian interference in our elections. 4/9
Adolf Hitler was the apotheosis of evil. I don’t doubt that trump had a book of quotations from Adolf Hitler next to his bed. My only question is, did trump beat off to it? 5/9
Footnotes:
FN1. Ryback, Timothy W., “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days,” The Atlantic, Jan 8, 2025.
FN2. Ryback is a historian and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He is the author of several books on Hitler’s Germany, most recently Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. 6/9
Footnotes:
FN3. Id., note 1.
FN4. Hitler claimed the foreigners were “poisoning the blood of the nation.” Id.
FN5. Id.
FN6. Tausche, Kayla, “Trump is considering a national economic emergency declaration to allow for new tariff program, sources say,” CNN, 1/8/25. 7/9
Footnotes:
FN7. Wiseman, Paul, “Frustrated Americans who voted for Trump await the economic changes he promised,” Politics Nov 9, 2024, accessed 1/8/25.
FN8. Foy, Nicole, “Trump promised to build more warships,” Propublica, 1/2/25, accessed 1/8/25. 8/9
Footnotes:
FN9. “Trump prepares to withdraw from Paris climate agreement,” Reuters, 11/8/24, accessed 1/8/25.
FN10. Gollom, Mark, “Trump wants to use a 226-year-old law to deport millions of undocumented migrants. Can he do it?” CBC News, 11/16/24, accessed 1/8/25.
FN11. Gerstein, Josh, “Trump promised to get revenge. Here are his targets,” Politico,” accessed 1/8/25. 9/9
they all made their untold wealth in America,while stealing and scamming every working American, now to crush it. the hired billionaires who used lies and propaganda to culturalize the masses, now march goose step into our nations home of democracy to dirty its floors. we see how 1932 has repeated again,the mentaly ill with jokers to define the great take over by the spoiled and hatred of the people. now comes the authuritarians and the regime. no one has even stood on the floor of congress to deplore in their face,the educated traitors of the courts and its jesters.corp America has now open a door in DC with wall street giddy of the fleecing of what is left of Americans lives. all the servants who made what America is today will show in force,how to manhandle those who defy,and those who only seek refuge from harm elsewhere. Lady Libertys light just went out,and the concentration camps turn on their dim lights to the gates for the damned.
congress has no human morals anymore, its become who we hired,over who we voted for. as the devil speaks, the backdrop has been filled with the rich and dispised,the greed and the little dictators. satin will step back and spread his little hands on jan 20 to allow the gates of hell to open over America..
To endure the coming sh*tstorm is going to be a challenge. At this time, when autocratic and tyrannical fascism is in ascendency we may have to “duck and cover” in order to be prepared for the next opportunity to resist. In the meantime, even small acts of defiance will be meaningful.
To quote from this morning’s Axios article regarding those who are flocking to bend the knee and kiss the ring: “The bottom line: It’s easy to offer symbolic gestures in good times. Trump’s true test will come when he has to pick winners and losers — and the losers decide how to react.”
I remember using the term, “Vichy Republicans” during the first Trump regime (“moral eunuchs” also got a lot of use). As for Facebook, anyone who has followed its history shouldn’t be surprised by Zuckerberg’s move. His ethics, to the extent he has any, have usually come after the threat of some kind of enforcement action by a regulatory agency. The evolution of Facebook privacy controls is an example. And don’t forget, before it became a tool to strip mine and monetize personal data from its users, it started as a tool used by Zuckerberg and his friends to rate the “hotness” of female students on their campus. Yeah, Bluesky is looking better every day.
Wealth (power) corrupts. Absolute wealth (power) corrupts absolutely.
That’s been known for a very long time.
Now, the country has surrendered to absolute wealth. They are at the appetizer stage of divvying up the pot, as we speak. The main course starts next week.
Perhaps MTV will move the center of government (wealth)(power) to Mar-a-Lago soon.
I love the way I can keep up with friends and family on Facebook but I don’t want to continue to support a platform that fails to fact check. Do you recommend Blue Sky?
Mark Small,
Yes and absolutely! This is something that some of us have been talking about for a long long time. Sometimes when you’re looking down that dark tunnel, you have to recognize the light you see is more than likely a locomotive. Do you stay on the track to make sure? Or do you jump off because you are rational!
It’s still not January 20th, so, Joe Biden could do the same thing. But unfortunately, that doesn’t seem the tack it’s going to be taken. So, there’s going to be a time of mixed results. Those who are at the bottom of the hill, will be the The receivers of all the poop coming from the top. So those at the top of the hill, will be quite pleased.
So, happiness really will be dependent on one’s station, or caste’. Slavery has not gone the way of the dodo, and one will have to have a specific identity to buy, to sell, to eat. That type of coercion, will make folks turn in their neighbors, kids turn away from their parents, and allow authoritarianism to blossom! Judging by the human ability to use discernment, I wouldn’t count on any sort of springtime recovery revolution. Some sort of hibernation would more than likely be more desirable than what is coming.
I just had an interesting experience. I went to post my comment and rather than post it, the system dropped it. I didn’t even use a single curse word! I’ll try again. First a correction, if I may: Orange Jesus (OJ) didn’t get a slim majority. He got a slim plurality. It’s a small comfort to know that more Americans voted against him than for him.
That Zuckerberg folded shouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s always been a smarmy little snake. What about the rest of the GOP? Is there something in the water at Mar-a-Lago that turns Republicans into puppets?
I haven’t decided to abandon Facebook yet. Whenever I’ve called out a lie, I am inundated with responses from the trolls. They cling to their world view in spite of any and all facts. It is sometimes sad and sometimes amusing.
Leslie, Bluesky is a Twitter spinoff created by the engineers who designed Twitter. They started it after they sold Twitter. As of now, it’s not replacing X anytime soon. I’d give it a 3 out of 10.
Excellent posts above, and what you will continue to see is the lines between blue and red in Washington will blur. The uniparty will act more like the, well, uniparty. Biden/Harris will do nothing to stop Trump/Musk because the DNC donors are falling in line and kissing the ring.
Zuck sold out users a very long time ago, and it’s not just about the data he takes and sells. It’s much more sinister than stopping moderation, too! Surveillance and intelligence agencies have been using Facebook for a long time. As I mentioned previously, Facebook’s facial recognition software identified 1/6 of the insurrectionists. Even local police can access FB backdoors and monitor specific keywords like “revolt” or “march.” The regional offices of DHS have all the latest tools to monitor social media, security cameras, traffic cameras, etc. Who do you think has access when you upload your security camera data to the cloud? Even your wearable tech like Fitbits collects data (including your health data) for the intelligence/surveillance state.
Now, in the hands of the oligarchs and their cronies. What could go wrong?
The Democratic Party knew it was coming and did nothing. They banned TikTok because they couldn’t control it since the primary owner was in China. The other company they couldn’t control was Telegram, but last I heard, a European government like France or the UK detained the founder while traveling, so who knows what they ordered him to do.
And yes, Trump has been studying Mein Kampf since the 80s. Everybody should read excerpts of Hitler’s book to understand the real game plan in Washington.
Europe is weak, and Trump knows it, and so does the CIA. Trudeau resigned to make way for a right-wing government. Bilderberg is setting up the chessboard in their favor. The central question is, while Trump and Musk are stealing the headlines, what are Vance and Thiel doing? Has the media forgotten about Project 2025? LOL
I’ve never been on FB, nor “X,” and expect that I never will. It is hard to vilify Zuckerberg, Trump, or any of that cohort sufficiently.
Orwell’s “1984” wherein the gov’t defined reality as it suited that gov’t is upon us, with “alternative facts” running the show. This is not going to be fun.
P.S.:
Judge ? Aileen Cannon’s latest Trump protecting move signals, to me anyway, that she wants to be on his SCOTUS short list. Sickening!!
I was pondering the nuanced use of the terms misinformation and disinformation, mis being simply inaccurate or misleading, and dis referring to intentional spreading of information that is not true. Meta and X are now completely untethered to the truth in any sense of the word, and while I would contend it is all disinformation that is being spread intentionally, maybe it is, in some cases, rather simply misinformation due to the lack of knowledge concerning the post ‘s content the individual poster possesses. Laziness, a lack of interest in the veracity of the subject, spreading untruths just as sure as disinformation, so perhaps the nuanced inspection doesn’t hold up. In any event, oligarchy surely rules now. Let’s hope their out-sized egos clash, crash and burn.
I never touched social media. the first question in the app,back when,where ya from school,etc. NOYFB. hense looking back, ive found in most circles,i dont exist. the name jack smith is a blind name,(thanks Sheila) my own words are true to the fact, at a young age,i was subjected to talk from WW 1 n 2 vets. and the subject was how and why. I never read fiction,except Orwell. and it wasnt hard during the vietnam days, to put 2 and 2 together. education is key,civics is a must have. maybe a realignment of education is better done by those who have been there,and demand the people are informed,and how. Sweden years ago made it manditory to educate its people to recognize propaganda from the news. The Euros are now insight to change what we fail to do. they do not want another hitler. lets see how these political billionaires here are treated when they visit Euro nations.. avoid social media,ive lived all thru its time on earth. it never stopped me from the flow of dedicated journalists and their first lines of history…boycott FB and the others who see fit to crush our freedom and our democracy for the remaining wealth/minds of the American worker.. the shareholders and zuck/bezo would go down in flames .
Sheila,thanks for the voice, your blog is a stand out to the freedom of what we may never see again..
So I am wondering, as more countries fall “in line”, to what country are all the moderately wealthy believers in Democracy moving to?
What is the playbook for those of us who do not have the resources, or unable, to move to another country?
Hope you will address this issue of what to do in the thick of it soon, before we all get cut off from communication with each other.
I am considering this “fact checking” situation as a Meta follower who, for some unknown reason, does not receive Republican or pro-Trump posts except on rare occasions. The few I received I simply blocked. The issue of the Trump/MAGA FULL takeover in a few days (they are already running the government sans full authority) brings to my mind the drastic increase of researching fact finding with all three branches of government the source of the lies and the terrorist tactics ahead. The roundup of immigrants, touted to be “only the criminals”, as if we do not know they consider all immigrants to be criminals by the fact that they are in this country.
Trump has applied to the Supreme Court, after being denied by the NYC court) to block the sentencing of his Fucking Bill conviction which is scheduled for tomorrow. Or, has SCOTUS already blocked as we watch the funeral procession for President Jimmy Carter begin?
The very word “vichy” takes me directly to the classic movie “Casablanca” and the undeniable truth that nowhere today can we find the status of people who carried out the actual Resistance throughout Europe during WWII. I knew one of them; Sonia was pre-teen and teenager during WWII in Amsterdam, Holland. Her mother was Jewish, her first marriage was to a Jew and they had two daughters; after he died her mother married a Gentile and they had Sonia. The older sisters were married to active members of the Dutch Underground and were hidden in their mother’s attic; Sonia carried out the family Black Market shopping for food. She was identified by the Brownshirts who chased her, shot her through the calf of one leg and she ran in front of a trolley and was hit. The Brownshirts thought she was dead so didn’t bother with her; her only thoughts were not to lose the fish she had bought and the few pennies leftover clutched in her hands. Do you know of anyone, especially today’s majority of teenagers, who are capable of such Resistance and such bravery?
The Democrats “changed horses in mid-stream”, “took a knife to the gun fight” and lost the election by infighting and lack of going to the streets to gather support for our candidates by knocking on doors; “…this is how democracies die: by surrendering in advance.” I’m still reading Leon Uris’ book “Mila 18” and am waiting to see how many of Hitler’s “Directives” are listed in Trump’s “Project 2025” when they begin.
I just copied and pasted your article on my FB/META page. (I cited you as the author.) It is the first post I have made in about 7 years. I am a member of 2 private groups on FB, one a progressive women’s forum and the other is my subdivision’s community page. I don’t see ads on either of those pages so I don’t believe I am contributing to the Zuck’s empire. I have recently signed up on Bluesky but really don’t use it much. I am thinking about greatly reducing my input of news because the madness is already too distressing! I will continue to vote and follow some bit of news but I think there is little I can do to influence what happens in the era of Trump. I hope we get through without a war, a major pandemic or some other form of mayhem. Asheville and California are already proving that Mother Nature is done warning and is now imposing consequences.
My thoughts and prayers are with us.
WAPO:
Google donates $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee
Like other Silicon Valley behemoths, the search and advertising giant has worked to make nice with the president-elect ahead of his second term.
January 9, 2025 at 10:06 a.m. ESTToday at 10:06 a.m. EST
2 min
It was reported that Senator Amy Klobuchar posted a reminder on X that several capitol police died as a result of the 1/6 insurrection. X made a note that no officers died on that day, and they died of natural causes. In fact, one officer died the next day as a result of the trauma he suffered on that day. Several other officers were reported to have committed suicide also caused by the post trauma of 1/6. Maga is whitewashing what we saw happen.
Maga fought with lies when they lost. Staying with truth and the facts is the best resistance.
Zuckerberg putting Dana White on his board of directors is a very big deal to the Joe Rogan bros and maga ts. UFC is a huge sport, 2 people in a cage, no gloves, no helmets or protective gear and they beat the living crap out of each other. There’s lots of amateur/underground like dog fighting) everywhere.
I’m on FB to know what maga ts are saying and doing being we live in the epicenter of the working poor maga ts and to vent.
Now that we know that many of the wealthy are going to only save themselves, we don’t have a means of safe communication, can’t grow our own food due to climate change, losing healthcare and retirement funds how are we seriously supposed to survive?
I spent the last week explaining the best I could why net neutrality is important and dreading the day my autistic grandson cannot stream Daniel Tiger. Then I had to research and try to understand how data collectors use up all the energy only to find out IPS and others districts are going to be turned into to charter schools. Next thing I hear,we are going to use the military for taking over Panama and Greenland, rep. Gill (r) was actually smirking when asked about it but refused to answer
It’s already too much to keep up on which is intentional I know.
Do we have any leadership for the resistance yet? Is there someone that we should be asking to take that role?
Do not focus on how bad they are. That is easy. Focus on how GOOD you are and what you CAN do to make the world a better place.
Helen, I ran across this activism website the other day and subscribed. So far, the articles have been very insightful. They didn’t wait until Trump got elected because most of us know neither party represents the people. The interests of the oligarchs are always priority number one!!
https://znetwork.org/
Never been on either Facebook or Twitter (or any of their offshoots), and never will be. A Jewish friend told me that an old Jewish proverb was “Sleep with dogs, get fleas!”
According to the Old Testament, after the great flood, God promised Moses that he would never do that again. So now he is using fire!
I think that Biden is basically an optimist who sincerely believes in the rationality of mankind. Like the US before 9/11 (we couldn’t even conceive that someone would willingly kill themselves by flying an airplane into a building), Biden can’t bring himself to believe that Trump is so venal as to declare and economic emergency so that he can invoke Project 2025. I am praying that he is correct, and terrified that he may very well be as wrong as we all were about 9/11!!